I heard the sound within minutes of starting the wash. Clunk. Clunk. What was clunking around in there? All I had thrown in was a few towels and my bathrobe — In which I sometimes carried my iPhone. Not the iPhone, not the iPhone, I prayed as I pulled open the washing machine door and reached into the dripping mass. It was the iPhone. My instant connection to everything, my beloved tech toy, my constant companion — it was soaking wet. ...

I heard the sound within minutes of starting the wash. Clunk. Clunk. What was clunking around in there? All I had thrown in was a few towels and my bathrobe — In which I sometimes carried my iPhone. Not the iPhone, not the iPhone, I prayed as I pulled open the washing machine door and reached into the dripping mass. It was the iPhone. My instant connection to everything, my beloved tech toy, my constant companion — it was soaking wet. ...

So I got a press release the other day about a new app that lets bosses and workers praise a colleague - without having to go through the un-fun process of face-to-face communication! The app, developed by WorkSimple, rewards hard workers with "a series of colorful badges. " Sweet. Now instead of telling Henderson that he really knocked that PowerPoint presentation out of the ballpark, you can just click a button and send him a valuable badge that's redeemable for nothing. Yay!

Land lines This is in response to the recent letter to the editor "Remaining wired" (Voice of the People, Aug. 8), from Rich Lange of Woodridge. The most important reason for keeping a land-line phone: Such phones are far more reliable than any electronic device. The land line works during a storm when everything else is down. Also a land line is much harder to invade or hack. — Elizabeth Clarke, Lake Forest Old and new phones As I looked at the illustration accompanying the...

Mike Stepan wasn't looking to switch his cable provider, but a knock on the door in November changed his mind. A door-to-door salesman told him that if he moved his cable, Internet and phone service to Comcast, the Valparaiso, Ind., resident could enjoy a rate of just $89.99 a month for the first two years. "It was a very attractive offer, Stepan said. "I was under no contractual obligations to AT&T or DirecTV at the time, so I signed up with the guy. " The...

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - The Mexican government's proposed telecommunications reform foresees prohibiting companies from blocking regulator rulings with injunctions while they pursue court appeals, which could eliminate a maneuver that has allowed companies to skirt competition rulings. The draft bill, posted on the website of President Enrique Pena Nieto on Monday, also included so called must offer/must carry rules that require broadcasters to offer channels to pay TV...

News flash: The economy stinks. It's not a good time to be throwing money at things that don't rate as necessities -- a description that applies to many gadgets. Inconveniently enough, though, the stuff of a technological lifestyle -- hardware, software, services -- can quickly add up. And a lot of these items are essential to many people. So how can you chip away at that figure? The obvious answer is to do nothing: That is, don't buy new things. This option isn't always viable,...

A St. Charles man has been sentenced to 14 years in prison for sexually assaulting a woman who had been babysitting his child. Michael Listy, 32, pleaded guilty this week to a single count of aggravated criminal sexual abuse and agreed to the 14-year prison term, according to Kane County prosecutors. According to police, Listy attacked the woman as she was babysitting Listy's infant child at his St. Charles home in November 2010. The woman, 24, dialed 911 on her cell phone and...

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - The Mexican government's proposed telecommunications reform foresees prohibiting companies from blocking regulator rulings with injunctions while they pursue court appeals, which could eliminate a maneuver that has allowed companies to skirt competition rulings. The draft bill, posted on the website of President Enrique Pena Nieto on Monday, also included so called must offer/must carry rules that require broadcasters to offer channels to pay TV...

Mike Stepan wasn't looking to switch his cable provider, but a knock on the door in November changed his mind. A door-to-door salesman told him that if he moved his cable, Internet and phone service to Comcast, the Valparaiso, Ind., resident could enjoy a rate of just $89.99 a month for the first two years. "It was a very attractive offer, Stepan said. "I was under no contractual obligations to AT&T or DirecTV at the time, so I signed up with the guy. " The...

Land lines This is in response to the recent letter to the editor "Remaining wired" (Voice of the People, Aug. 8), from Rich Lange of Woodridge. The most important reason for keeping a land-line phone: Such phones are far more reliable than any electronic device. The land line works during a storm when everything else is down. Also a land line is much harder to invade or hack. — Elizabeth Clarke, Lake Forest Old and new phones As I looked at the illustration accompanying the...

So I got a press release the other day about a new app that lets bosses and workers praise a colleague - without having to go through the un-fun process of face-to-face communication! The app, developed by WorkSimple, rewards hard workers with "a series of colorful badges. " Sweet. Now instead of telling Henderson that he really knocked that PowerPoint presentation out of the ballpark, you can just click a button and send him a valuable badge that's redeemable for nothing. Yay!

A St. Charles man has been sentenced to 14 years in prison for sexually assaulting a woman who had been babysitting his child. Michael Listy, 32, pleaded guilty this week to a single count of aggravated criminal sexual abuse and agreed to the 14-year prison term, according to Kane County prosecutors. According to police, Listy attacked the woman as she was babysitting Listy's infant child at his St. Charles home in November 2010. The woman, 24, dialed 911 on her cell phone and...

The setup: Three out of 10 Chicagoans said in a recent online survey that they would give up sex for a year rather than their cell phones. There's nothing sexy about a land line How does one have sex without a cell phone? How does one meet up with another person? I'd have to get a land line, and it would be totally weird to run home from the bar to drunk dial from my kitchen. Then I'd be sprinting off to a late-night bar, but by the time I arrived at Raven's, my potential...

Fernando Zulueta has an opinion on the use of cell phones at work: He loves it. Zulueta, 46, who owns a chain of charter schools in South Florida, scratches out the land-line number on his business cards so people won't use it to call him. If he is in a business meeting and his cell phone rings, he often picks it up, even though he considers such behavior annoying. "I regret to say it," he said, speaking over one of his several cell phones, "but you see your caller ID...

I felt desperate as I drove. My second trip to Starbucks in four hours; how pathetic was this? But I had to have a fix. Caffeine? Sure, I'd take some. But that wasn't what I really needed. I was there, again, as I would be again in 12 more hours, for the Internet access. So began my week of living dangerously short of technology. Due to a combination of quirky circumstances and my own tendency to lose items like cell phones, I found myself in a nearly...

The setup: Three out of 10 Chicagoans said in a recent online survey that they would give up sex for a year rather than their cell phones. There's nothing sexy about a land line How does one have sex without a cell phone? How does one meet up with another person? I'd have to get a land line, and it would be totally weird to run home from the bar to drunk dial from my kitchen. Then I'd be sprinting off to a late-night bar, but by the time I arrived at Raven's, my potential...

News flash: The economy stinks. It's not a good time to be throwing money at things that don't rate as necessities -- a description that applies to many gadgets. Inconveniently enough, though, the stuff of a technological lifestyle -- hardware, software, services -- can quickly add up. And a lot of these items are essential to many people. So how can you chip away at that figure? The obvious answer is to do nothing: That is, don't buy new things. This option isn't always viable,...